Trevin Wax, who served on this year’s Resolutions Committee, gave some thoughts yesterday on Resolution 9. There’s been some criticism of that resolution, which speaks to the issues of Critical Race Theory and Intersectionality. You can find the thread on Twitter here. I thought it would be helpful to compile the material here for ease of access and for future reference. This is what Trevin said:

I had the privilege this year in serving on the #SBC19 Resolutions Committee under the leadership of Dr. Curtis Woods. I’ve been surprised by all the conversation surrounding Resolution #9, and I’d like to add some clarity as to the deliberations of the committee.

The Committee received a resolution on this issue and decided to speak to it in a way that warned against absolutizing CRT/I as a worldview and yet remained cautious to not condemn all insights that could be gleaned from CRT/I (subordinate to Scripture).

I’m baffled by headlines that claim the Committee was praising, or promoting, or pushing CRT/I. This is simply not true. Words mean something, and to twist the resolution’s words in this way misrepresents the Committee’s work.

There are limited insights we can receive from fields of psychology (which, ideologically, is often outside a Christian worldview) or statistical analysis or sociology, etc.

When missiologists do demographic and statistical work, they must understand the overlapping identities or perspectives of the people they seek to evangelize. The resolution’s carefully qualified limited use of CRT/I is speaking to descriptive analysis; not ideological analysis.

In no way was the Committee adopting or promoting CRT/I as a worldview. The resolution makes that clear. Everyone—and I emphasize this fact—on the Committee would agree that the origins of CRT/I come from worldviews opposed to the gospel. No disagreement there whatsoever.

Still, that does not mean that every observation issuing from CRT/I is wrong, sinful, or unhelpful for how Christians understand the world. Hence the language of “truthful insights” the resolution employs. Discernment requires the careful sifting of what is good from what is bad.

The resolution as it stands is explicit that biblical sufficiency trumps any misuse of CRT/I. Any use of CRT/I that would seek to subvert a category of Scripture would be forbidden.

Hence, where CRT/I may speak of “oppression,” the resolution would grant that the category of oppression is present in Scripture (i.e., the Jews were oppressed in Egypt) but that “oppression” as a category is insufficient to see the world through or to understand one’s identity.

A friendly amendment that simply pointed out the origination, not just the appropriation of CRT/I would likely have been accepted. The amendments proposed were lengthy and introduced more terms and phrases that would have needed explanation.

Much of the online chatter seems to me an exercise in hyperbole and projection. The resolution is being used to confirm the narrative that the SBC is trending in a troubling direction. This should not be the case.

No one on the Resolutions Committee drafted this resolution with nefarious motives nor considers themselves apologists for CRT/I. Assume the best of your brothers and sisters.

And please take a good look at Resolution 6. We will need this kind of culture if we are to fulfill the Great Commission together. http://www.sbc.net/resolutions/2305/resolution-6–on-the-promotion-of-a-cooperative-culture-in-the-southern-baptist-convention-for-mission-advance

One last thing — Resolution 9 clearly establishes human identity in the image of God and for all redeemed humanity, our common identity, together eternally united to Christ, acknowledging the Bible addresses people based on individual characteristics.

Thus, it would repudiate all forms of identity politics and any ideology that establishes fundamental human identity on anything other than our created dignity in God’s image.

I was confident in the makeup of this Resolutions Committee from the start. And I continue to believe that this resolution presents a balanced statement that’s overwhelmingly against Critical Race Theory while avoiding the extreme position that its opponents seemed to be demanding.

One strong critic of Critical Race Theory is Neil Shenvi, who responded to Trevin’s thread with the following:

@TrevinWax This is a very helpful summary, @TrevinWax. @tomascol, @clbolt, and I had a very helpful discussion of Resolution 9 on the @RegReformedGuys podcast and we agreed on three main points: 1/

1) the language of non-Christian individuals ‘appropriating’ CRT/I for their non-Christian worldview should have been replaced with CRT/I ‘originating in’ non-Christian worldviews. 2/

2) Apart from that modification, nothing in the resolution was technically false. It included several important statements about ‘repudiating’ the worldview of CRT/I and also rejected some of the most dangerous aspects of the worldview of critical theory: human identity, etc. 3/

3) The resolution could have been benefited from more warnings about the worldview of CRT/I. In particular, when ‘CRT/I’ is encountered in the media or even in academia, it does not usually refer to a narrow, nuanced ‘analytic tool’; 4/

far more often, it refers to the ‘worldview,’ with all of its unbiblical presuppositions. Thus, Christians should be especially mindful of the dangers it poses. 5/

While we were split over our support for the final resolution, I think our agreement on these points was significant and encouraging. For those interested, it’s available here: http://www.regularreformed.com/2019/06/19/episode-64-resolution-9-from-the-sbc/

So I’m pleased with the resolution as it was passed by 80-90% of the messengers at the convention, and I believe that a lot of the negativity during and after the debate was misplaced for one reason or another. The committee deserves to be commended, in my view, for this year’s resolutions–which covered some really important topics with care and biblical balance.

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About Brent Hobbs

Brent Hobbs is lead pastor of New Song Fellowship in Virginia Beach, VA. Before that he pastored Severn Baptist Church in Severn, NC. He's a graduate of SBTS (M.Div.) & Dallas Baptist University. WebsiteTwitter

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Tarheel_Dave

Thank you Mr. Wax for the explanation… It is a completely reasonable one… It is completely Irresponsible for people to suggest that the members of the committee were embracing CRT/I. That notion is ridiculous. It’s also true that one can gain helpful insights – even from vain philosophies of the world…

I haven’t gotten involved in the hyperbole that is found primarily in the Twitterverse about this and only made one post about it in the Baptist Review on Facebook… for what its worth (I understand it’s not much) – I’ll share the substance of what I posted there, here…

I agree with Dr. Mohler‘s analysis… “I did not want the resolution to say less….what it said was good … It just should have said more.”

What it did say was fine… But I think it lacked unequivocal and certain repudiation of the worldview ( explicitly calling it a vain philosophy) and its origins including clear caution Relating to the fact and danger that tools – especially ones so entrenched in such an anti God and anti gospel worldviews – often do not remain merely tools without great effort to keep the drift from happening if one immerses themselves in the use of a tool. The Colossians passage about vain philosophies would have been most appropriate.

But in actuality… with The hard work and the godly character of the resolutions committee members not in doubt whatsoever,…

Who cares? As a resolution and its wording is not binding on any person or church not even on an entity…no resolutions are. It’s only the opinion of the majority of people in the room at that given moment…

At least that’s what we’re often told.

But then, often, those same people who make that argument about resolutions they don’t like… will use turn around and tout resolutions (past and present) as proof of the conventions “beliefs” or “stands” on this or that issue they do support… ( I must include myself in the “they’s” above.)

Do Resolutions matter?

Honestly – it depends on whom you ask… And about which resolution(s) you ask them about.

June 20, 2019 5:32 pm

Roger Simpson

For those of us in Rio Linda how about giving us a brief of what “CRT / I” is?

This whole discussion to many of us might as well be about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.

If CRT is bad then what is wrong with it? If CRT is OK but un-related with Christianity then why bring it up at all?

What is the practical outworking of having some type of “view” regarding CRT?

June 20, 2019 6:40 pm

Steve Newhouse

Roger Simpson, I totally agree with you. I did some online research on CRT and to me it is goobly gook with the bottom line being feelings, personal experience, personal views and personal perception is just as valuable as the traditional world view western civilization status quo in dealing with established facts and beliefs based on historical advancement of civilization. Emotions and rhetoric over fact and established achievements.
It is like on TV when they ask a star NFL, NBA or golf athlete what his views on world everts are. Their perspective carries as must weight as State Dept. reports but it is what they feel and think that matter, they are for world peace, etc. and freedom.

June 20, 2019 8:59 pm

Ray

I’ve read a good bit of Trevin’s work over the past few years and always found him to be completely honest and trustworthy so, as a rank and file messenger I fully trust his statements on Resolution 9. As to the group verbalizing a doomsday view on Resolution #9 (and other relevant issues), your credibility is fading fast.

June 20, 2019 8:35 pm

Jon

I read resolution nine after hearing about all the controversy regarding it. I did not see where it is overwhelmingly against CRT/I. Perhaps you can highlight a couple of statements that you think show this. Had it been overwhelmingly against CRT/I there wouldn’t be any controversy. CRT/I is an extremely dangerous worldview, and quite frankly this resolution didn’t do enough to point that out. Simply saying that Scripture is the supreme authority in this doesn’t point out the danger that CRT/I presents, and it would have been better had they just not made the resolution at all than to give us what they did.

June 20, 2019 9:27 pm

Mark Smith

Resolution 9 is a weird thing. After reading it the day of the vote, again later after reading more about CRT/I (wow, an acronym) and now this, I still ask why this resolution was even brought up. It seems like a wonkish resolution, written so that a couple of “scholars” at some seminary (apparently SEBTS) can write papers using CRT/I “analysis tools” (whatever those are). It felt out of place to drop this on 5000 SBC messengers, 99% who knew nothing about CRT/I, and ask them to vote on it. Then claim “broad support” after it passes basically because people generally respect the Resolution Committee’s work, and not that they fully understood or even knew what CRT/I was. At best it was therefore an inappropriate resolution without more set up and explanation.

On the personal side, I have been exposed repeatedly to CRT/I at my job at a secular university, especially this Spring after a string of incidents at the school. I cannot fathom why anyone would use anything from it for any purpose other than to denigrate western civilization. That is its purpose. In a nut shell, the purpose of CRT/T is to say that all social and cultural constructs of western civilization are inherently racist, sexist, and homophobic. That is not hyperbole on my part. It is a fact. Why and how would one use this for “missions studies”?

June 21, 2019 9:16 am

John Sneed

Mr. Smith, I am a doctoral student at a west coast university. My experiences with CRT are parallel to yours. Your second paragraph is spot on.

June 21, 2019 7:55 pm

Kevin Jenkins

Ditto. After many years in academia, I can confirm that no good, and a lot of harm are the only results an informed observer would expect from CRT.

June 23, 2019 11:25 pm

Michael White

Brent [or anyone that knows],

This quote from above:

“One last thing — Resolution 9 clearly establishes human identity in the image of God and for all redeemed humanity, our common identity, together eternally united to Christ, acknowledging the Bible addresses people based on individual characteristics.
Thus, it would repudiate all forms of identity politics and any ideology that establishes fundamental human identity on anything other than our created dignity in God’s image.”

My question is what possible analytical tools can be derived from a theory that has been gutted at its base like the above guts CRT/i?

In order to use it as a tool, you would need to view life from its perspective, and thus take on its view of life as true in order to ‘see’ how it ‘sees’.

The sociological observations can be true even if the proposed responses to those observations are not. It’s a logical fallacy to reject truth because we don’t like the worldview of the people pointing it out.

Case in point: Most scientists and current scientific methodology is rooted in a naturalistic worldview by people who hold an evolutionary theory of origins. I did not take that into consideration when we chose to send my wife for chemotherapy and radiation nor did I reject the diagnosis of cancer.

June 25, 2019 8:33 am

Woody Whitt

Todd, that is not the case here, CRT is being rejected because it is by definition a theory and not a fact and as such should not have a resolution validating it. The question remains ” what is the purpose of the resolution” what end does it serve?

woody

June 25, 2019 2:25 pm

Louis

Mark, John, and Kevin:

I believe your experiences and concerns are legitimate.

Two of our seminary presidents, Al Mohler and Jason Allen, have gone on record criticizing this resolution. Al Mohler even worked to round up someone who offered the amendment to the resolution.

The resolution was an inside baseball thing. Some professors at some seminaries want to be able to use CRT/IS in their work without being criticized and this resolution was a way of providing that kind of cover.

Despite Dr. Mohler’s statements about this resolution, many younger SBC leaders see being able to reference CRT/IS as important so as to engage in the larger cultural discussion about race. And many of them are friends or admirers of the seminary professors who want to use CRT/IS.

It’s really not about the merits of the resolution.

It’s about being in the same team in this broader discussion.

Many who voted for the resolution trusted the work of the committee. It was also late and people wanted to leave.

I have no doubt if Al Mohler had spoken to the resolution, his comments would have been heard and taken into consideration.

Without a known person like that speaking to it, not enough people were willing to amend the resolution.